


Valence

by Cheloya



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-08 23:46:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8867974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheloya/pseuds/Cheloya
Summary: The intrinsic attractiveness or aversiveness of an event, object, or situation. Or person, as it turns out. Slight AU, post-2x23 "Crossover".





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ds9shameblog](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ds9shameblog).



> Written for ds9shameblog for the DS9 Reverse Bang. Check out the gorgeous artwork this was written for on tumblr: http://ds9shameblog.tumblr.com/post/151356093364/my-piece-for-the-ds9reversebang-one-quark-was

Quark woke to the sound of a hundred busy machines and, nearby, damp breathing. He opened his eyes to blinding light, and promptly closed them again. Beside him, the damp breather edged into snores.

He hurt, and his throat was terribly dry.

He tried to move his head. A blip that had been steady increased in frequency, and he heard quick, light steps across a sizeable space.

"Awake at last," said a bright, boyish voice. "How are you feeling?"

He squinted into the brightness, eyes watering. A long brown face resolved gradually out of the light, smiling and looking much cleaner than he'd seen it previously. Quark opened his mouth and emitted a croak.

The Terran's smile became abashed, and he rummaged briefly before offering a cup and straw. "Sips, please. You've not eaten solid food since you got back, and your stomach might not be up to much."

"Back? Where am I?"

"I suppose it's not really back for you, is it? Well, may I be the first to welcome you to Deep Space Nine, previously Terok Nor, of what we call the prime universe. I'm afraid there wasn't time to drop you off on your side before we came back through the wormhole, what with the Klingons firing at us like that."

Disjointed pieces floated through Quark's memory. "The Intendant's double," he said slowly. "She made a deal." Wonderingly, "She made a deal with _Garak_."

"Indeed," said the Terran. "And were I permitted to discuss such things with our side's Garak, I'm quite certain he would laugh for days."

Another Garak. Quark gulped.

"If you'll excuse me for a moment, I promised to let the captain know when you were awake." The Terran slapped at his chest. "Bashir to Sisko. Our guest is awake, sir."

*"I'll be with you shortly, doctor."* The voice was familiar, but the tone was eerily calm. Correctly interpreting Quark's expression, the Terran — the _doctor_  — chuckled and held up his hands.

"You needn't worry. Our Sisko is quite unlike yours." A brief flash of white teeth. "Most of us seem to be. You, for example, are a model patient. Our Quark wouldn't have let me get a word in edgeways, let alone managed to let his brother sleep undisturbed."

Bashir rounded the bed to grip the damp breather gently by the shoulder, and Quark felt his eyes grow round.

It *was* Rom, but his brother never woke so casually, or so flagrantly displayed his wealth. He and Quark were both sentimental idiots, as their mother delighted in telling them, but neither of them were stupid.

Rom yawned widely, showing perfectly-sharpened teeth, and then caught sight of Quark. He sat up straighter, and nearly toppled from his chair.

"Brother!" he half-shouted, and then appeared to reconsider his enthusiasm. "Uh, I mean, half-brother, I guess." Hesitant, respectful modifiers. Definitely not his brother.

"We thought you might appreciate a friendly face, even if it's not quite the same as the one you're used to," the doctor said cheerfully. "Although I'm afraid you'll have to wait outside when the captain arrives, Rom. Far outside," he added, tugging meaningfully at one tiny, underdeveloped ear.

Rom nodded, but turned back to Quark, "Don't worry, half-brother. We'll, uh, you'll be welcome in our quarters while you're here, if you wa-ant."

Quark swallowed. The sing-song tone of a request worked just as well when it wasn't his brother he was listening to. "I wouldn't want to put you to any trouble," he said, and Rom beamed.

"Family's no trouble," he said, clear and certain this time, and then slid from the high Terran chair to the floor. "See you soon, brother."

Quark watched him go. Rom stepped aside at the exit to let a horribly familiar Terran pass, and Quark had to resist the urge to call his brother back.

"Mr Quark," said the Terran, jovial as his murderous counterpart.

Quark's wrists were still sore from Garak's bindings, but in the face of Benjamin Sisko, pressing them together was only common sense.

 

***

 

It was a much cleaner station, without ore processing. Quieter, too, but pleasantly discordant. When he mentioned it to Rom, the other nodded eagerly.

"Cardassian and Federation components," he said, as if Quark should understand. "Brother says I'm making it up, but they're not compatible re-eally."

The Quark on this side needed to have his ears checked. Even to him they didn't sound right, even if it did remind him of widely-traveled Ferengi ships. Rom resumed his rambling description of the habitat ring, and Quark listened with half an ear until he heard his name alongside the words 'Dabo' and 'holosuite'.

"There's a bar?" he asked aloud. "My bar?"

Rom beamed and nodded. "My brother's. Wa-anna see?"

 

***

 

It was the bar of his dreams. What he'd have done, given the budget. Well, almost. Dark corners for Cardassian patrons, frequent privacy barriers to keep the Klingons in line, nothing obscuring the line of sight of the bartender. And the bartender: himself, in clothes that...

Well, he'd never dreamed of them, but mostly because his imagination hadn't run that far ahead of his means.

"Brother!" Rom exploded as they approached the bar.

"You're late." The other Quark lifted a small toolbox and slid it over the bar. "Holosuite Two. The controls can't be dismissed. It's distracting our customers."

Rom hauled the toolbox to his chest and started up the wide staircase, leaving Quark with his double, who had resumed polishing a glass as if nothing were amiss.

"Cousin Gintar," said the bartender pointedly, and placed the glass on the textured metal of the counter. A half-hearted gesture of greeting. "No discounts for family, even family as distant as yours."

Quark had no Cousin Gintar. An uncle, maybe, but he'd died in a long ago incursion. Alliance, probably, but those days had been chaotic, and their history always changed.

"Cousin Quark. Your business flourishes." He raised his joined hands ever so slightly, a slightly more subservient gesture of greeting, and the bartender seemed mollified. Quark supposed he understood. Seeing your own double was bound to raise questions of superiority, especially if Sisko was able to follow through with his stated (conditional) intent to let Quark stay. Imperative for this side's Quark to establish a superior position.

The other Quark ran his tongue along his teeth, one side of his mouth curling upward. From behind the bar he withdrew a bottle, then another, and another, lining them up in a wall between them.

"I'm told we have a few shared talents," said the other Quark, expression approaching a leer as he rolled the words in his mouth. He set a tall, lopsided glass on the counter, and gestured to the bottles in front of him. "Mix me a drink."

"What's your pleasure?" Quark's hands moved automatically to the unknown bottle in front of him, opening it to inhale gingerly. He recoiled from its cloying sweetness, and capped it again decisively.

"Smart choice. That one is hu-man stuff; revolting to any discerning Ferengi." The bartender grimaced. "Something with kick."

Quark surveyed the bottles in front of him, and then let his eyes travel to the ones still sitting behind the bar. "Pass me the kanar and some jumja sap and you can have something your patrons won't need to share to come back for another."

The bartender's grin broadened, darkened lids falling to half-cover his eyes. One hand disappeared beneath the counter, and re-appeared with a rattling canister of jumja cubes. "I think you have yourself a job — pending 30 days' probation, naturally."

"Naturally," said Quark, and offered the back of his hand.

 

***

 

It had all been going so well.

The denizens of Deep Space Nine had clearly seen stranger things than their bartender's drabber, more genial twin, and though it had taken some days for Morn to warm to him, they were soon chatting like old friends. His presence freed up Rom to tend to the bar's ever-failing circuitry, saved the dabo girls their employer's more overt attentions, and gave Quark a small stipend of this 'latinum' stuff that was supposedly used as currency around here.

He started to think he could make a life here, if the Federation were willing to let him stay.

And then the voice hit him.

" _ **QUARRRK.**_ "

He lost his grip on the Saurian brandy as he spun to face Supervisor Odo, smashing it into the brightly lit shelves behind the bar and taking out another four or five bottles besides. A rainbow of liquid spattered the bar, the patrons, the side of his face, and he was dimly aware of the sting of glass shards too close to his eye. He backed away at a scramble, heedless of the stares.

The expression on the supervisor's misshapen face morphed from furious to stunned, and then, slowly, to chagrined.

"You're paying for that," said this side's Quark to this side's perplexed-looking Odo, and Quark sank slowly to the ground, hands shaking. He dropped the remnants of the brandy bottle and covered his face with his hands, trying to calm his racing heart and breathing. Blood pounded in his ears, obscuring sound; a stupid physical reaction that would probably get him killed one day, and meant that he jumped again, like an idiot, when the weight of a hand landed on his shoulder.

"My apologies," said the voice, much quieter and far less harsh. "For startling you."

Quark resisted the urge to peek through his fingers, and took his face from his hands like any other respectable, hyperventilating adult. Voice aside, there was an intense curiosity to this Odo's gaze that clearly separated him from his counterpart back home.  
  
That and the fact that he wasn't splattered across the room like so many expensive beverages.

The changeling directed a jutting chin upward. "Your employee is bleeding, and appears to be in shock. I'll escort him to the medical bay."

"Then you're also paying his wages until the doctor is done with him," snarled the other Quark, clearly more concerned with the wasted alcohol, and with getting Odo out from behind the bar before he spotted the volipede racing ledger. "Go on, get out of here, those of us with nerves stronger than Vulcan crystal have work to do."

"Don't think you're getting out of the original reason for my visit," Odo growled back, pulling Quark to his feet and steering him toward the door. "Better tidy your trail before I get back."

Quark allowed himself to be marched along the Promenade, jaw locked tight against panic. It wasn't until they reached a quieter corridor that the changeling's fingers relaxed against his collarbone.

"This way is longer, but quieter."

Quark chanced a glance up at the changeling's face, and found it still in that flux between regretful and annoyed. He looked away again just as quickly, swallowing a sound of distress.

"Major Kira explained about my... counterpart. I intended to inform you before today that my station does not run that way." A shrug, more fluid than it should have been. "Unfortunately, my time was otherwise occupied."

He sounded almost as uncomfortable as Quark himself was. A nervous laugh escaped Quark's throat.

"I didn't even think. The Intendant — she always referred to you as 'unique'. I didn't expect you to exist at all, let alone be—"

"Alive?" Odo chuckled. The vibration of his forearm so close to Quark's ear was... distracting. "Our doctor is impetuous, but has seen no need to turn his phaser on me."

Quark swallowed. "That's... nice?" he tried, and the changeling snorted.

"I imagine anything is 'nice' after interrogation and ore processing."

Quark fell silent, trying not to think. After a few more minutes, he began to recognise the sounds of the infirmary amid the thousand small sounds of the station.

"Back already?" asked the doctor as they entered. "A little too much fun at Quark's, eh?"

"Entirely my fault, though accidental," said Odo before Quark could respond. " _Gintar_  here looks far too much like his cousin."

"Just wait until Quark realises how useful he'll be as an alibi. Up on the biobed, please, and turn your face to the light — ah, much better. Won't be long. Nothing in your hand? You must be quite a bartender; I've seen men lose fingers, and you do not want to be invertebrate in a bar fight."

"I'm afraid I must return to apprehend Quark before he manages to dispose of all evidence of this eisillium shipment." He quirked a lipless smile. "Unless you'd like to save me the trouble and provide a full account, _Gintar_."

"I'm still learning the ropes," said Quark, trying not to move too much as the doctor plucked shards from his brow ridge. "I wouldn't have the first clue about the boss's shipments."

Odo snorted, but his eyes gleamed. Quark felt one side of his mouth curl upward.

Perhaps he would make a life here after all.


End file.
